Because people arguing about it need to create a false dichotomy of one of the other.... same thing with politics and computers and just about everything.
The saline soaked carboard McDonals already uses is already it's substitute for beef. The problem is that this new "meat' will likely be a lot more expensive at first, like when CFC and LED bulbs first started making in-roads into consumer purchases. But unlike those things, there is no long-term benefit to paying more for a McDonalds burger. It will take a lot longer than that, and it has to be cheaper.
Facebook is not "necessary" for anything given any reasonable definition of "necessary." What you mean is that facebook makes some things easier than other methods, and if that's what you want, and the "price" is worth it to you, then so be it.
No, but they can regulate who can legally get a tattoo in a way that's more enforceable than the click-through of if someone is old enough to sign up for facebook. Perhaps you should have to be provably 18 or over in order to get an account.
"Rail" barons? There is a huge flaw in your comparison - the so-called "robber barons" made the U.S. one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world by providing goods and services that did things like provide cross-continental travel and cheap heating and lighting oil all across the country. I'm not suggesting they were nice guys, but they built things that were useful, unlike social media.
I won't buy the disc. I won't pirate it, either, but when AMC makes $1.40 per subscriber that can DVR every show on AMC, paying $25.00 for a season of The Walking Dead is absurd. Instead, they get nothing from me except what Netflix pays them, and I watch the full season when it becomes available there. I'm a patient person, and don't give a crap about spoilers, and I have plenty of other shows to watch in the meantime.
I would be willing to directly pay double to each network that I want what the networks get from the cable companies per subscriber (if I could get that network's content commercial free). Maybe even triple. But that's not good enough for them.... AMC is charging $5 for commercial free, and you STILL need a cable account to use their service. AMCs cost per subscriber to cable companies is less than $1.50/month.
Hmmm... I guess à la carte means different things to different people. I'd be willing to go either way, although I prefer specific content over specific channels, like you suggest.
Here's the problem. I cut the cord, but I can already get specific content. Take the Walking Dead, for instance. I can pay Amazon $3 an episode, or $25 for the season. The problem I have with that is, if I were subscribing to cable, AMC would make HALF of what ONE episode costs and I'd be able to watch ALL their shows; even just as conveniently (perhaps more-so) if I have a DVR.
In other words, the à la carte pricing is not commensurate with TV pricing... not even close. AMC is one of those channels I'd directly pay DOUBLE what they make from the cable companies to stream their shows commercial free.... it'd still cost less than $3.00. Even the $5.00 commercial free service AMC is offering right now requires the cable login... the only benefit is you get streaming and commercial free.
So I would expect à la carte pricing for content to be more expensive than the amount you'd come up with by looking at the cost per channel and breaking it down somehow to a cost per show, but even if you take that approach and multiply it by a factor of $10, it's still a tiny fraction of what these stations want to charge, despite the fact that if they had faith in their programming they'd stand to make a lot more, and they'd be happy, and the people would be happy, and the only one's crying would be the cable companies.
IOW, I should be able to pay roughly what a basic cable subscription costs to get just the 10-15 shows I might want to watch streamed commercial free, and the stations would make more money from me than they would from the cable company.... but apparently that's not good enough for them.
Yes, that's true. They can give me an "up to," if they want, but they should also give me an "at least." At least X, up to Y. This is the kind of thing that has nothing to do with NN, though. If the customers in my neighborhood are all on at once, and that causes me to not be able to watch something, or worse, not be able to work from home, then I shouldn't have to pay that month. That's their incentive to make sure the neighborhood is covered.
I get what you're saying, but there are always going to be companies that legitimately highly value bandwidth.... even the U.S. government, military, research facilities.... as long as it's not pulling bandwidth from the other customers, I don't have a problem with it - it's like the express toll lane on the highway. I use it if I really "need" it (like commuting home to go see my daughter's play at school, in my case); otherwise the people that are willing to pay extra to use it all the time aren't really taking away from the other commuters when the lane was added for that specific purpose.
It's really a lot more complicated, though, isn't it? Because if my Netflix isn't playing well, it might have nothing to do with my internet access, but Netflix's - and if that's the case, then they should be adding more servers and bandwidth on their end, and they shouldn't jack up the price because part of the existing cost is already to pay for internet service, and if they are getting that many more customers they should be getting that much more money to increase bandwidth. But if the problem is that someone paying for "fast lane" service is causing Netflix's to be reduced, then I agree that's a problem - but again, the problem is between Netflix and it's provider, or the ISP customers and their providers for not providing the agreed upon bandwidth.
No, because you've got it backwards. Netflix isn't "pushing" anything - neither is slashdot. The customers of Netflix are pulling content, and those customers are also ALREADY PAYING their providers for bandwidth. Those providers shouldn't be able to charge Netflix for the bandwidth the provider's customers are already paying for.
I think the root of this thread has it wrong, though. If a provider is providing the speeds it claims, then Netflix should have no problems playing. Outside of that, if the provider wants to provide "fast" (or "faster") lanes for an upcharge, then I really have no problem with that as long as providers are providing the speeds they advertise to their customers.
Hmmm.... perhaps the dumbest comment yet. 1) we're talking about toys and video games, 2) as long as you can get water from your faucet, any idiot that wants to pay a lot of money for bottled water can feel free to do so. If you can't get clean water from your faucet, talk to your government.
I never said anything about "unfair." The idiots complaining about having to overpay for toys and video games are the ones creating the problem. I'm a patient person - if idiots are driving up the cost of something, I can wait. It's not unfair, it's just stupid people flushing their money down the toilet and encouraging the "scalpers" and "speculators." The more the shoppers do it, the more they encourage the speculators, and the more it happens, and the more the idiot shoppers complain. For me? *shrug*
Quoth myself, highlighting for the impaired: "Anyone who has paid more than retail for a gaming system, or anything else that will eventually be available for the retail cost, is NOT A VICTIM, they are the PROBLEM."
The shoppers are idiots, and they largely get what they deserve - anyone paying more than retail is exacerbating the problem, but god forbid your child doesn't get the latest gadget for Christmas. Anyone who has paid more than retail for a gaming system, or anything else that will eventually be available for the retail cost, is NOT A VICTIM, they are the PROBLEM.
I don't like Trump but, no, that's not what he's saying. Your analogy is wrong.... it's Apple being ahead, then Samsung, then Apple, then Samsung.... but at some point, Apple lost the crown to Samsung (and who has it now is entirely subjective). Just because the U.S. might slip in it's dominance doesn't mean we don't try harder, it means that, for some period of time, we slipped in our dominance.
It doesn't come as as surprise to me, and I don't think Trump is to blame. The world is constantly evolving - universities worldwide are getting better, why do we think that, because we had an edge at one point, that we have some sort of right to it?
True, but there probably wouldn't be rioting on campuses across the country (and in the streets) if Clinton won.
They asked students why they were protesting the day after the election, and they claimed "because we want our voices to be heard." So our best and brightest didn't understand that that is what the election is for, and having your voice heard (by voting) doesn't guarantee everything goes the way you want. Representative Democracy - the greatest system of choosing leaders... unless the person you want loses.
I want to point out, again, that these statistics claim there was drop in the 2016-2017 school year, the bulk of registrations occur in Fall, so that happened before Trump was elected, and at a time when nobody thought Trump could possibly win.
The drop increased in 2017 - but was it Trump, or a trend that already started, or both? It's very likely both - blaming Trump for the drop is really short sighted. People tend to want simple answers, but the truth is seldom that simple, and there are likely all sorts of reasons (including Trump) involved.
Yes... it's not criminal to be successful here, but those who aren't (and even some who are) can't believe it can be done ethically, through hard work and by creating something others find beneficial. The vast majority of millionaires did not start off that way (America: Where Millionaires are Self Made). Yet the wealthy are vilified, it's become ubiquitous to precede "rich" with words like "dirty" or "stinking." It's sunk into the American psyche that wealthy people simply cannot be "good" or "moral." I know a guy - and so do you - who donated $6 million to charity and was berated for doing it to evade taxes (by people whose knee-jerk reactions are to vilify anything the wealthy do - and who have no clue how tax deductions work).
This has little to do with my opinion about higher education - if you are poor, and come here because you have excellent grades, and work to get a higher education and are subsidized by American tax payers, then it's really a moral obligation to pay back into the system that helped you become successful. So I have no tears for people that want to be subsidized, but don't want to pay back when those subsidies helped make them successful.
I'm generally a libertarian, but sometimes the big picture shows that the best places to live, the nicest, cleanest places with the lowest crime rates, are those where things are paid for by the community. The hardcore libertarian belief that things like fire protection, police protection, roads and mail should all be privately run are untenable positions when scrutinized. Perhaps college should be completely paid for, perhaps not. My problem with it is that if people get useful degrees, like engineering, or degrees that help those useful degrees, like mathematics, it's one thing. Producing successful and productive members of society who then pay into subsidizing others is certainly not a terrible system (if it works). But when people who are not talented pursue art degrees, or music, and then demand subsidies to pay for their art later on - after all, if someone really wants to be an artist, shouldn't they be able to live as one? That starts to be another absurd proposition equal to nothing being subsidized (at the other extreme).
As usual, the truth - the best path - lies somewhere in the middle, but too many people with hard core beliefs - yes, on both sides - prevent meaningful discourse on the matter.
Slashdot Mirror
All those frogs on crutches. It is definitely cruel.
Because people arguing about it need to create a false dichotomy of one of the other.... same thing with politics and computers and just about everything.
In other words, Soylent Green is people.
The saline soaked carboard McDonals already uses is already it's substitute for beef. The problem is that this new "meat' will likely be a lot more expensive at first, like when CFC and LED bulbs first started making in-roads into consumer purchases. But unlike those things, there is no long-term benefit to paying more for a McDonalds burger. It will take a lot longer than that, and it has to be cheaper.
Facebook is not "necessary" for anything given any reasonable definition of "necessary." What you mean is that facebook makes some things easier than other methods, and if that's what you want, and the "price" is worth it to you, then so be it.
No, but they can regulate who can legally get a tattoo in a way that's more enforceable than the click-through of if someone is old enough to sign up for facebook. Perhaps you should have to be provably 18 or over in order to get an account.
"Rail" barons? There is a huge flaw in your comparison - the so-called "robber barons" made the U.S. one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world by providing goods and services that did things like provide cross-continental travel and cheap heating and lighting oil all across the country. I'm not suggesting they were nice guys, but they built things that were useful, unlike social media.
I won't buy the disc. I won't pirate it, either, but when AMC makes $1.40 per subscriber that can DVR every show on AMC, paying $25.00 for a season of The Walking Dead is absurd. Instead, they get nothing from me except what Netflix pays them, and I watch the full season when it becomes available there. I'm a patient person, and don't give a crap about spoilers, and I have plenty of other shows to watch in the meantime.
I would be willing to directly pay double to each network that I want what the networks get from the cable companies per subscriber (if I could get that network's content commercial free). Maybe even triple. But that's not good enough for them.... AMC is charging $5 for commercial free, and you STILL need a cable account to use their service. AMCs cost per subscriber to cable companies is less than $1.50/month.
Hmmm... I guess à la carte means different things to different people. I'd be willing to go either way, although I prefer specific content over specific channels, like you suggest.
Here's the problem. I cut the cord, but I can already get specific content. Take the Walking Dead, for instance. I can pay Amazon $3 an episode, or $25 for the season. The problem I have with that is, if I were subscribing to cable, AMC would make HALF of what ONE episode costs and I'd be able to watch ALL their shows; even just as conveniently (perhaps more-so) if I have a DVR.
In other words, the à la carte pricing is not commensurate with TV pricing... not even close. AMC is one of those channels I'd directly pay DOUBLE what they make from the cable companies to stream their shows commercial free.... it'd still cost less than $3.00. Even the $5.00 commercial free service AMC is offering right now requires the cable login... the only benefit is you get streaming and commercial free.
So I would expect à la carte pricing for content to be more expensive than the amount you'd come up with by looking at the cost per channel and breaking it down somehow to a cost per show, but even if you take that approach and multiply it by a factor of $10, it's still a tiny fraction of what these stations want to charge, despite the fact that if they had faith in their programming they'd stand to make a lot more, and they'd be happy, and the people would be happy, and the only one's crying would be the cable companies.
IOW, I should be able to pay roughly what a basic cable subscription costs to get just the 10-15 shows I might want to watch streamed commercial free, and the stations would make more money from me than they would from the cable company.... but apparently that's not good enough for them.
Yes, that's true. They can give me an "up to," if they want, but they should also give me an "at least." At least X, up to Y. This is the kind of thing that has nothing to do with NN, though. If the customers in my neighborhood are all on at once, and that causes me to not be able to watch something, or worse, not be able to work from home, then I shouldn't have to pay that month. That's their incentive to make sure the neighborhood is covered.
I get what you're saying, but there are always going to be companies that legitimately highly value bandwidth.... even the U.S. government, military, research facilities.... as long as it's not pulling bandwidth from the other customers, I don't have a problem with it - it's like the express toll lane on the highway. I use it if I really "need" it (like commuting home to go see my daughter's play at school, in my case); otherwise the people that are willing to pay extra to use it all the time aren't really taking away from the other commuters when the lane was added for that specific purpose.
It's really a lot more complicated, though, isn't it? Because if my Netflix isn't playing well, it might have nothing to do with my internet access, but Netflix's - and if that's the case, then they should be adding more servers and bandwidth on their end, and they shouldn't jack up the price because part of the existing cost is already to pay for internet service, and if they are getting that many more customers they should be getting that much more money to increase bandwidth. But if the problem is that someone paying for "fast lane" service is causing Netflix's to be reduced, then I agree that's a problem - but again, the problem is between Netflix and it's provider, or the ISP customers and their providers for not providing the agreed upon bandwidth.
No, because you've got it backwards. Netflix isn't "pushing" anything - neither is slashdot. The customers of Netflix are pulling content, and those customers are also ALREADY PAYING their providers for bandwidth. Those providers shouldn't be able to charge Netflix for the bandwidth the provider's customers are already paying for.
I think the root of this thread has it wrong, though. If a provider is providing the speeds it claims, then Netflix should have no problems playing. Outside of that, if the provider wants to provide "fast" (or "faster") lanes for an upcharge, then I really have no problem with that as long as providers are providing the speeds they advertise to their customers.
Hmmm.... perhaps the dumbest comment yet. 1) we're talking about toys and video games, 2) as long as you can get water from your faucet, any idiot that wants to pay a lot of money for bottled water can feel free to do so. If you can't get clean water from your faucet, talk to your government.
I never said anything about "unfair." The idiots complaining about having to overpay for toys and video games are the ones creating the problem. I'm a patient person - if idiots are driving up the cost of something, I can wait. It's not unfair, it's just stupid people flushing their money down the toilet and encouraging the "scalpers" and "speculators." The more the shoppers do it, the more they encourage the speculators, and the more it happens, and the more the idiot shoppers complain. For me? *shrug*
Thank you. GP poster here, and yes, I have two (now older - one adult) kids.
A parent of two. Perhaps it's just my kids aren't spoiled brats.
No, he's really not. I don't like Trump, but he was elected by the electors, just like the U.S. Constitution says is supposed to happen. Q.E.D.
Quoth myself, highlighting for the impaired: "Anyone who has paid more than retail for a gaming system, or anything else that will eventually be available for the retail cost, is NOT A VICTIM, they are the PROBLEM."
The shoppers are idiots, and they largely get what they deserve - anyone paying more than retail is exacerbating the problem, but god forbid your child doesn't get the latest gadget for Christmas. Anyone who has paid more than retail for a gaming system, or anything else that will eventually be available for the retail cost, is NOT A VICTIM, they are the PROBLEM.
I don't like Trump but, no, that's not what he's saying. Your analogy is wrong.... it's Apple being ahead, then Samsung, then Apple, then Samsung.... but at some point, Apple lost the crown to Samsung (and who has it now is entirely subjective). Just because the U.S. might slip in it's dominance doesn't mean we don't try harder, it means that, for some period of time, we slipped in our dominance.
The conductor will now commit hara-kiri after apologizing for shaming his family.
It doesn't come as as surprise to me, and I don't think Trump is to blame. The world is constantly evolving - universities worldwide are getting better, why do we think that, because we had an edge at one point, that we have some sort of right to it?
True, but there probably wouldn't be rioting on campuses across the country (and in the streets) if Clinton won.
They asked students why they were protesting the day after the election, and they claimed "because we want our voices to be heard." So our best and brightest didn't understand that that is what the election is for, and having your voice heard (by voting) doesn't guarantee everything goes the way you want. Representative Democracy - the greatest system of choosing leaders... unless the person you want loses.
I want to point out, again, that these statistics claim there was drop in the 2016-2017 school year, the bulk of registrations occur in Fall, so that happened before Trump was elected, and at a time when nobody thought Trump could possibly win.
The drop increased in 2017 - but was it Trump, or a trend that already started, or both? It's very likely both - blaming Trump for the drop is really short sighted. People tend to want simple answers, but the truth is seldom that simple, and there are likely all sorts of reasons (including Trump) involved.
Yes... it's not criminal to be successful here, but those who aren't (and even some who are) can't believe it can be done ethically, through hard work and by creating something others find beneficial. The vast majority of millionaires did not start off that way (America: Where Millionaires are Self Made). Yet the wealthy are vilified, it's become ubiquitous to precede "rich" with words like "dirty" or "stinking." It's sunk into the American psyche that wealthy people simply cannot be "good" or "moral." I know a guy - and so do you - who donated $6 million to charity and was berated for doing it to evade taxes (by people whose knee-jerk reactions are to vilify anything the wealthy do - and who have no clue how tax deductions work).
This has little to do with my opinion about higher education - if you are poor, and come here because you have excellent grades, and work to get a higher education and are subsidized by American tax payers, then it's really a moral obligation to pay back into the system that helped you become successful. So I have no tears for people that want to be subsidized, but don't want to pay back when those subsidies helped make them successful.
I'm generally a libertarian, but sometimes the big picture shows that the best places to live, the nicest, cleanest places with the lowest crime rates, are those where things are paid for by the community. The hardcore libertarian belief that things like fire protection, police protection, roads and mail should all be privately run are untenable positions when scrutinized. Perhaps college should be completely paid for, perhaps not. My problem with it is that if people get useful degrees, like engineering, or degrees that help those useful degrees, like mathematics, it's one thing. Producing successful and productive members of society who then pay into subsidizing others is certainly not a terrible system (if it works). But when people who are not talented pursue art degrees, or music, and then demand subsidies to pay for their art later on - after all, if someone really wants to be an artist, shouldn't they be able to live as one? That starts to be another absurd proposition equal to nothing being subsidized (at the other extreme).
As usual, the truth - the best path - lies somewhere in the middle, but too many people with hard core beliefs - yes, on both sides - prevent meaningful discourse on the matter.